“Oh, man,” said Everett as they approached the panhandler, “talk about your target audience.”
Angelo smiled. Everett was such a soft touch. “Just keep your eyes straight ahead. Better yet,” he said, pointing, “there’s the Sears Tower,” But it was a lost cause. Everett was digging in his pocket for change, “He’s no mutant. It’s just part of the act, Ev, like the broken-down car story or the hungry-kid story or the wounded-veteran story.”
The man nodded gratefully as Everett dropped a handful of coins into the cup with a loud clatter.
Angelo paused. “You want to see a mutant?” he asked, looking around warily. He leaned close to the man and clicked off the image inducer, just for a second.
To his surprise, the old guy didn’t flinch at all. Instead, the old man’s stare fixed behind them, and his eyes went wide. “Sentinels!” The man pointed behind them before turning and trotting away.
Angelo groaned. * ‘Dios, this guy has got the whole act going.”
Then a seven-foot-tall robot guy stepped in front of him and knocked Monet against a wall so hard that her outline was visible cratered into the bricks.
Emma drove. Sean and Recall sat in the backseat. Pound sat in the front passenger seat, hands covering his face, peeking through his fingers as they squeaked through the openings that Emma was telepathieally creating in traffic. ‘ ‘If we smash this car, my dad will kill me. It once belonged to the She-Hulk.”
“That,” said Recall grimly, “was just a tale the salesman told him.”
“Please,” said Pound, “no ‘tail’ jokes. Not now.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” said Recall, as the car ducked through a parking lot and up an alley to avoid an especially tight knot of traffic, the undercarriage scraping on every dip and rain gutter. “Told you to fix those shocks,” said Recall. Then to Emma, “They aren’t moving so fast now. I think they’re inside the Loop somewhere, maybe stationary, maybe on foot.”
“They’re almost to Norman’s studios.” Sean looked at his watch. “We aren’t gonna make it.”
They squealed out of the alley, making a sharp right turn onto the street, fishtailing wildly, then ran a slalom between taxicabs. There was a whiff of sauerkraut as their right mirror missed a hot dog cart by about a millimeter.
“At least,” said Recall, “we can listen to it on the radio.”
The platform slid down out of the van with an electric whirr, the doors swinging smoothly open in front of the Expatriate. The bottom of the platform hit the pavement with a thud and he sat up quickly, tipping the Mandroid clumsily to its feet. The gyros whirred and saved him any further embarrassment. Behind him the back of the van was already closing. He looked around the empty alley and the loading docks ahead. It seemed that he was unobserved. “Pickup here in thirty minutes—one hour at the secondary point across the Chicago River.”
He marched out of the alley, the armor making his movements seem slower and yet effortless at the same time. A woman in a red suit covered her mouth to stifle a scream, then turned and ran in the other direction. A group of Japanese tourists down the block pointed and suddenly reversed course away from him. He smiled. That was the intended effect.
He walked into the lobby of the building, creating more panic. The guard stood behind his desk. To his credit, he held his ground as the disguised Mandroid approached.
He keyed the voice interface. ‘ ‘I am here for The Walt Norman Show. I am Peg.”
The guard’s face was pasty white. His hand came away from the unbuttoned holster where it had been resting only a moment before. He pointed past a planter full of rubber plants at the bank of elevators. “Sixth floor.”
The Expatriate turned and walked toward the elevator, trying to pretend he had never seen the building before, hadn’t come this way every morning for almost two years. Each step, familiar and yet strange, brought him closer to his goal.
Walt Norman was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
“This is Watcher One, they’re right in front of you.”
Ivan saw the group of six kids with the panhandler. He recognized them from photos and previous encounters. The fleshy gray one was missing, but a Hispanic youth was with them. Then, to his surprise, the Hispanic youth seemed to turn into the gray mutant, just for a second. A shapechanger?
“You’ve made them. The bum is not a target. Get close and attack. Don’t let them get away. This is primarily a delaying action, but take them down if you need to.”
He rushed in and backhanded the dark-skinned girl. Intelligence reports from Rushmore indicated she might be the most dangerous of the bunch. She slammed against an adjacent building with the force of a car wreck. Too bad if he killed her on the first blow, but he’d learned never to underestimate a threat.
The blonde spun toward him, her skin shredding as she did, revealing a dull glint of metal underneath. Was she somehow a disguised robot too?
Then Combat Two hit her with a concussion cannon and she was blown into the side of a parked car, caving the driver’s door into the car’s interior.
He turned his attention back to the Hispanic boy, and was surprised as the gray aspect suddenly returned. Ivan raised his arms, warming up the needier miniguns, but the boy put his hands over his head. At first Ivan thought he was surrendering, and hesitated, when suddenly the boy’s arms and fingers shot up like a pack of whips, snagging the overhead structure that supported the El tracks. Then the boy snapped up and away from him, his extended arms allowing him to swing beneath the tracks like a monkey.
The tall boy in black reached for the scarf that always covered the lower half of his face and ripped it away. He was turning toward Ivan, who saw an angry orange glow that suddenly flared.
There were four, no, five of them. Chamber could see eyes through the vision slits. These toy soldiers were armored, not robots. They’d taken out M and Husk hard and fast, but he thought he’d spotted the leader of the bunch. He was thinking of Paige as he spun and let loose the strongest biokinetic blast that he dared.
The armored figure slammed into the street as though pulled by an invisible spring, crashing into the stainless-steel side of a milk tanker stopped for a light. A seam split, and white fluid began to gush out into the street as the armored form reeled momentarily, then fell back, ducking under the truck.
He heard falling masonry to his right, and spotted M pulling herself free of the half-collapsed brick wall. She didn’t seem hurt, only shaken and very annoyed. Another of the armored units trotted from behind a pillar and, before Jono could react, fired something at her with a loud pop. Something small flew at her, then exploded just before impact in a collection of tan-colored snakes that wrapped themselves around M and constricted. She staggered, then fell, struggling against the tangled mess.
The unit that had fired the tangle bomb turned toward him. He let loose another blast before it could draw a bead on him.
He ducked between parked cars, looking for the rest of them. Just up the street, Jubilee and Synch were doubleteaming another unit, Jubes distracting it with fireworks while Synch, who seemed to be using both Skin and Husk’s power, wrapped him in the blue steel straps that were his fingers.
Husk had climbed out of the smashed car, and was now using the shattered door like a shield against a unit armed with a flamethrower. He was looking for a target when the car to his right was suddenly rolled aside, leaving him completely exposed to the armored leader’s weapons.
Angelo watched the battle raging in the street below with frustration. These tin guys were both tough and strong. There seemed to be little he could do short of trying not to get killed. Then he saw one of the suits walk under him, marked with streaks of milk from the truck Jono had blasted him into. He spotted Jono, and was about to shout a warning when the walking tank unexpectedly rolled the car into the street to get at Jono. He could see Jono crouched behind the next car, caught like a deer in headlights.
What the hell. He used the stretch in his finger
s to slingshot himself down from the El track, landed on the thing’s armored back, and, wrapping his arms tightly around the head, cut off its vision. It was like riding a bull as the armor stumbled backward, arms flailing. A cannon of some sort misfired, blowing in a row of second-story windows on a nearby office building. Angelo was relieved to see the for lease sign on the adjacent windows.
Then the ride was over as a huge armored hand grabbed his right leg in a vise grip and yanked him loose, throwing him through the air like a pop fly headed for deep left field.
Synch looked around. M was trapped, Husk was cornered, Chamber was reeling, and Skin had just been tossed out of his field of vision like a used tissue, “Jubilee, we’ve got to take this guy down, turn the fight around!”
Reluctantly, he tapped a bit of M’s super strength and drew his skin back from the struggling robot, which he pushed back against an El support pillar, then punched as hard as he could, straight into the center of the chest. There was a huge clang that made his whole body vibrate, but he’d only made a fistsized hole in the armor, surrounded by cracks.
Then he saw Jubilee, a look of rage and determination on her face as she spun, liquid fire shooting from her fingertips, filling the opening. Instinctively he ducked as the collected energy let loose with the force of a bomb.
Angelo was flailing through the air helplessly toward a glass storefront when some instinct remembered his kite stunt over the Xabago days before. He relaxed his skin, spreading out, letting the air balloon him up like a parachute. He slowed, fluttered like a leaf, then managed to get some control over his flight and was gliding clumsily back into the thick of things.
Chamber cowered behind the overturned car as projectiles whistled over his head from the leader’s weapons. He realized that if he couldn’t get out from behind the car, he’d have to use it. He tensed his legs and jumped straight backward, firing a blast as he did, sending him one way arid the car in the other. It smashed into the leader, then into the wall behind him, making an armored sandwich.
He would have smiled if he could, but first he had to land without killing himself. He rolled, trying to get his legs under him as the pavement came up. Then a rubbery gray trampoline appeared out of nowhere and cushioned his fall. He bounced and managed to land on his feet after the recoil.
Skin smiled at him, his hand spread like a spiderweb, anchored by extended fingers.
“Good save, mate.”
Synch looked up from behind his arm, to see the front of the armored thing peeled open like an orange. The red-haired woman inside seemed to be trying to extricate herself from the useless hulk and make an escape, but Jubilee rushed up, brandishing a handful of sparks. The woman froze.
He turned to see M, still struggling with the brownish stuff. “Don’t panic, M,” he called, “you’re invulnerable. You can fly. You don’t need to get loose.”
Understanding, she stopped struggling against the stuff, drawing herself into a ball, a ball that lifted off the sidewalk and began to whip back and forth through the air, hitting the remaining tin guys like a bowling ball hitting pins, drawing them closer together, not giving them time to fire. He could see Chamber to his right, and Synch with his bio-blasts. What M had given them was one compact, choice target. He and Chamber let loose at once.
Ivan was drifting when the sound of his faceplate being ripped away brought him back to consciousness. The blonde, now seemingly a statue made of lead, leaned close to him, as did the dark-skinned boy.
He tried to move, but his armor was inert, pinned between a wrecked car and a wall. He could only move his head. He wondered if he was dying, if he was paralyzed.
“What’s this about?” asked the girl. “Who do you work for?”
Ivan looked around. He could see overturned cars, wreckage everywhere, the smashed truck still leaking, and several Man-droids lying motionless in the street, another ripped open under the El, The rest were missing. They’d lost. Five Mandroid troopers defeated by a handful of teenagers. It couldn’t be. He heard sirens approaching.
“Tell us,” said the dark boy with the shaved head.
Suddenly another face loomed close, or half of one, anyway. From the nose up it was a handsome teenage boy, and below, a gaping horror filled with a glowing energy that writhed like maggots in dead flesh. He tried to draw away.
“Tell us,” repeated the boy, “or I’ll let my friend Chamber here dump the rest of his can of whoop on your sorry butt.”
Ivan looked over. The armor was dead, but the chronometer still worked. He smiled. It was too late. They couldn’t stop it, and after it happened, they wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. Anyone that mattered, anyway.
Ivan laughed harshly, making gurgling noises deep in his throat. “I work for the Expatriate. Even now, he is killing Walt Norman—” he looked at the blonde “—and putting the blame on you.” The sirens were quite loud now. “You are an escaped killer,” he said. “I suggest you run before the police get here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The once top-rated, nationally syndicated Walt Norman Show was in a six-month ratings slump until a young caller electrified audiences by revealing herself to be a mutant and challenged his patented, humanist, antimutant stance. But can it last after the mystery girl makes her appearance on the show next week? Says Producer Trent McComb, “I have no doubt that this show will be on everyone’s lips the next day, that listeners will get a show they’ll never forget, and that will keep them coming back for more.”
—Radio Trade Weekly
Lordie,” said Sean, standing in his seat and looking over the roofs of the cars stopped ahead of them, “they’ve gone and trashed Chicago.” Or at least, it seemed, the next block. There were smashed building fronts, overturned cars, twisted metal, and broken glass covering the street like a carpet. A small fleet of emergency vehicles was on site, with more arriving. Sean remembered something the Angel had once said about the X-Men that seemed to apply to his own students as well: You can generally tell where they've been.
Recall stood in the backseat to get a better view. ‘ ‘It looks like they had help. Are the silver guys friends of yours?” Sean leaned forward on the windshield frame and squinted at the closest of the silver figures laying sprawled in the street. “Those look like Mandroid armor. S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, but not with S.H.I.E.L.D. markings. Doesn’t look like their kind of work.” He turned back to Recall. “Are the kids here?” Recall shook his head. “That way,” he pointed.
“They have to be headed for Norman’s studio,” said Emma.
Sean looked surprised. “After this? I know the kids are acting crazy, but they know that after something like this they should be headed to ground. What could be so blasted important?”
Emma opened her door and stepped out. “Sean, we’ve got to get there. This trouble is somehow tied to the show, and I have a feeling this is only the tip of it.”
Sean was muttering to himself. “Blasted kids. Why didn’t they talk t’us?”
“We’ll never get there in this traffic. Fly us there.”
“Me too,” said Recall. He saw their reaction. “I don’t weigh much. Besides, you may need me to find them.”
Sean nodded. “Aye, I can take you. It should only be a few blocks.”
Recall leaned over to address Pound. “Meet us there when you can, Spud.”
Pound frowned, clearly disappointed at being left behind. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here and talk to the pigeons.” Sean held out his hands to Emma and Recall. “Let’s fly.”
Marina, one of the interns, was clearly terrified as she led the Expatriate down the hall from the elevator to the studio. He couldn’t let on, of course, that he knew the way, that he’d been there thousands of times, and would be there thousands
of times yet again after he took over the show.
He thought of the brave, “spontaneous” speech he’d written to use after Norman’s death, about how they would continue the show as his legacy, to carry on his message, and
that his death shouldn’t have been in vain. Oh well, he could still salvage most of it for tomorrow’s broadcast. Of course he’d have lost some inertia, and he’d have to lobby to even get on the air tomorrow, but he was confident it could be done. To a network executive, death wasn’t a tragedy, it was simply a call for spin control, and “Trent McComb” would offer them the best spin control they could get.
He could see Norman through the glass walls, hear his voice on the monitor speakers ranting about how Peg was late, and speculating that she was afraid. What would his reaction be? This was a moment to be savored.
Marina opened the door, and he edged through, having to duck and turn sideways to make the armor fit. Norman looked up and stopped in midsentence, eyes like dinner plates, his mouth flapping soundlessly.
He found his voice before his good sense came back. His first words were, “My God, you’re ugly.”
There was no response programmed into the voice box for that. Oh, well. “Walt Norman, I am Peg. America has been listening to you for years. Now they will listen to me. They will know what we do to humans who stand in our way.” Norman was too arrogant to even be afraid. His castle had been invaded by an upstart. “Now, see here, this is my show. You just sit down!”
He saw the chair Norman was pointing at. Probably the armor would have smashed it to bits, even if it had been agile enough for him to try. Somehow the thought was very funny.
No, time to end this. Using any of the weapons might give away the armor’s true nature. Something dramatic would be better. He wondered if the fingers of the Mandroid’s hand could wrap all the way around the back of Norman’s head. He triggered the voice box again. “You must be silenced. Walt Norman, my name is Peg, and I’m here to kill you in the name of all mutantkind.” Somewhere behind him, he heard a door open, but nobody could stop him now.
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